I just learned I'm in a young city: only 500 years

I saw the punchline coming, though they didn't mean it as a joke. A filmmaker from Estonia was explaining what a young city Helsinki is, and I started chuckling while I asked "How young?"

I knew it was going to be older than our entire country. Twice as old. It was built when the old capital burned. I think they said that had been there about 1200 years.

Such a different scale here. When we drove to my grandmother's house as a child, I hated that section of Chicago--a tiny little place called Stickney, near  Cicero--because it felt so repulsively old. The houses and the streets too, were maybe 75. Seemed like a different planetary age to me.

Not really. Not measured in European terms--which is itself one of the youngsters of civilization, especially these northern stretches.

On the way back to the hotel, I mentioned how some of the buildings reminded me of St. Petersburg. "Oh yes, same architect," the woman said. Only 300 years. A new section of town.